


Day 20: Constriction

by Aichi



Series: Kinktober 2020 [20]
Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Constriction, F/M, Restraints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27452191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aichi/pseuds/Aichi
Summary: After everything is over, Dumjid reaches out to someone who he never truly got to meet. It doesn't go exactly as planned.
Relationships: Ahsha/Dumjid
Series: Kinktober 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951588
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Day 20: Constriction

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO MY FRIENDS IT IS THE NICHEST OF ALL NICHE FICS IN THAT IT'S BOTH MY INCREDIBLY HYPERSPECIFIC SQUEEZING FETISH BUT NOT EVEN IN A SEXY CONTEXT AND IT'S ALSO MY INCREDIBLY HYPERSPECIFIC SHIP OF TWO CHARACTERS THAT NEVER ACTUALLY INTERACTED!!! WOOOOOOOO
> 
> I swear to Messiah I will write something E rated again soon.

Dumjid crouches between the branches of a dense red-and-orange thicket, and begins to wonder if all this was such a good idea after all.

The wide, flat, strong-smelling leaves blend convincingly enough with his scales, and between them, as he crawls slowly, tentatively forward, he catches sight of his target; the grand tree stretches so far into the air that he can’t see the top from his vantage point, and trails of flower-dotted ivy hang from every branch. Dappled rays of sunlight peeking through the canopy spill shifting spots of gold and green over the door set into its base, carved in an intricate pattern of yet more flowers that matches the frames of the small round windows dotted at intervals up the massive trunk.

This is _definitely_ a mistake. He doesn’t belong here. This whole thing was a waste of time.

As he turns — to leave, or to retreat to a safer vantage point, he doesn’t know — something small and green shifts in the earth at his feet. Before he can gather his wits enough to leap out of the way, it bursts forth: a vine as thick as his wrist, writhing furiously like the tentacle of an angry beast. It coils around his leg like a spring, and there’s no time to even cry out in shock before a dozen more follow suit; curling up from the dirt around him as if their natural growth had been accelerated a thousandfold.

Dumjid roars, a gout of flame momentarily choking his nostrils with ash and heat, but it fires uselessly off into the air as a vine loops around his neck and jerks his head back. Several of them coil around each limb, interlocking with all the strength of iron chains, and even his violently beating wings are pinned to his back and left wiggling and useless. His struggles are sluggish, pathetic; even as he fights he knows it, and he knows, with a twisted knot of fury and desperation in his gut, that it’s because he’s been distracted, let himself make the stupid mistake of being caught unawares.

At the very least, he shouldn’t have come alone, not this far into a foreign nation, but how was he supposed to explain this trip to his fellow troops?

The vine around his throat tightens, stiffens, and a fear creeps into his chest, old and gnarled but still burning. He can’t die here, not like this, choked to death by a plant — but another vine stretches up and wraps around his muzzle, pinning his jaws together, and together they pull him to the ground, their collective weight bearing down on him as if they were made of stone. Then he’s being dragged, the rough, clinging plant fibres hauling him over dirt and pebbles and twigs that catch and break in his scales, pulling him out into the mottled sunlight of the treehouse’s garden.

Something lands heavily in the dirt next to his head, and the vines allow him to twist just enough to see the business end of a large hoe buried inches away from his snout.

“Who are you?” its owner demands, as she crosses into his line of vision. “A spy? An assassin?”

Ahsha wrenches her hoe from the ground with a strength that makes Dumjid’s nerves twitch. She points it at him, not aggressively, but certainly dangerously, and Dumjid huffs wordlessly past the impromptu gag binding his jaws together. The vines make no move to loosen their grip; if anything, they tighten in response to her demands, grass tickling his belly as they hold him against the ground. He wills himself, dimly, to move, to fight, because _surely_ he can get a claw loose and start slicing these things to pieces, but the blood sits cold and hard in his veins, his heart as tight as his bonds, and he lies frozen like a human stunned by the lights of an approaching car.

For what feels like a long time, Ahsha stares at him with a narrowed, suspicious gaze, as if she’s forgotten that his bound muzzle prevents him from answering her. Then, gradually, her eyes soften, widen, and her mouth opens in a little ‘o’ of recognition.

“You’re… Dumjid,” she says. She lowers her hoe and lets it fall, forgotten, to the grass. “You were one of the diffriders! But then you helped us fight Gyze and Gastille! What are you doing _here_?! Why would _you_ want to assassinate me?”

Dumjid huffs in spite of his gag, shame burning sudden and vibrant under his scales. He’d hoped to not be instantly recognized, or at the very least, to not meet _like this_.

“ _Mhhm not a—_ ” he growls, muffled, but rather than release him the vines haul him upright, writhing over his limbs like excited snakes. They have the decency to loosen their grip, at least, and the instinctual, burning feeling of being slowly and inevitably crushed recedes like a turning tide. The one around his neck slips away altogether, instead assisting the others in pinning his arms to his sides, and even when it finds its place it doesn’t stop moving, shifting and coiling continually around his broad chest, a surprisingly gentle wave rolling repetitively over his scales.

“Well, you’re probably not _actually_ an assassin,” Ahsha muses quietly, and Dumjid gets the distinct feeling he’s not a part of the conversation after all. “Just passing through? No, but then you wouldn’t be sulking around in my bushes—” Dumjid snorts again, because he was _not_ sulking, he was _mentally preparing_ — “And if that was the case, surely you would have stopped by for tea!”

As she carries on her one-sided debate, the vines continue writhing unabated; Dumjid wonders, feeling incredibly awkward now more than anything else, if they’re bound to her emotions somehow — they seem excited, yet nervous, constantly moving but still refusing to let him go. The thick, pungent smell of plant fibres fills his nose, courtesy of the one shifting around his muzzle, and he coughs, the others tightening slightly around his chest in response. They don’t seem intent on hurting him anymore, their contractions more of an exploration of his form than anything else as their blunt tips slither and quest across exposed patches of scale.

“I’ve decided,” Ahsha announces, grandly, after far too long, “that you are _not_ a threat.” She steps forward, and something in Dumjid’s throat sizzles with an unfamiliar apprehension as she raises a hand to his muzzle. A quick tap on the vine gagging him, and it recedes; it takes Dumjid a moment to move, stiffly opening and closing his jaw, shaking his head to return feeling to his snout.

Ahsha smiles, her soft brown face framed neatly by pure white hair, crown of pristine blue flowers bobbing as she tilts her head, and the spark in Dumjid’s throat flares nervously. Drawing in a sharp breath, he swallows it, ignores it, and—

“I came here to see you,” he blurts out, feeling incredibly stupid.

She blinks, her face creasing in transparent confusion. “Hm? I mean, I’m always happy to receive guests, of course, but— did something happen? Do you need my help?”

 _Of course_ , Dumjid thinks, swallowing again to drown the rising bitterness. _We’re strangers. This is ridiculous_.

But his voice continues, of its own accord: “While I was diffriding— on Planet E, I met a human girl. Her name was Tokoha Anjou. She taught me a lot of things— about fighting, and about strength, and about life, and she—”

Ahsha remains silent, but her expression softens again, her stance relaxing slightly. The tendrils, too, gradually begin to relax, as if they’re equally interested in what he has to say. Several of them slither back into the ground altogether, as if sucked away by a vacuum, but the ones strapping Dumjid’s arms against his sides remain.

“—When she played Vanguard, she used you as her avatar,” he finishes, lamely, rocks piling in his stomach as he wonders if she even _knows_ about the concept of cardfighting. Maybe he sounds insane. He couldn’t even blame her if she dragged him off to the authorities right away, given the way he was lurking in her foliage like some kind of stalker. “I saw you before, when we fought Gyze, but I never got a chance to say anything.” _Yeah, that’ll_ really _convince her you’re not a stalker._

It’s at this point that he’s really starting to realize that there’s no plan beyond this, that he doesn’t actually _know_ what he wants to say to her; _thank you, both of you, for fighting together_?

 _Thank you for stopping me_?

Dumjid deflates, sagging in his bonds, and this time he’s thankful for the way they stiffen and support him, finally stopping their perpetual undulating to keep him from collapsing into the grass. Despite the blistering awkwardness of it all, even telling her this much is an immense relief, like a confession of a deeply buried secret.

“Tokoha Anjou…” Ahsha says, cradling the syllables in her mouth like the name of a long-lost friend. A dainty finger taps thoughtfully at her lips. “I see…”

 _Bonds_ , Tokoha had told him, were what supported her when she felt weak. He’d laughed at the idea, screamed, threatened her — and now, here he is, clinging to the shreds of those bonds, to someone he doesn’t even _know_ , in the name of some stupid, vague hope that Ahsha will even know what he’s talking about. That some understanding of that fight remains in her, stretching across the empty, timeless void from Planet E. That she'll understand how much he owes her.

"I can just go," he croaks, stiffly.

“No, no," she says, and there’s that warm, pure smile again, the one that makes Dumjid’s heart skip a beat, “I think that you should join me for tea, and then you can tell me all about it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay the secret is this is just me using a vague prompt as an excuse to get an introduction to this pair out of the way so I can do stuff with them at an indeterminate time in the future without having the hassle. Sorry did I say "Kinktober" I meant "DoWhateverTheFuckIWanttober"
> 
> The Next Fill Will Actually Be Sexy I Promise
> 
> Twitter: @cosmowreath


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